


Sacrifice

by veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Don't Have to Know Canon, Heartwarming, Heartwrenching, Italics Overload, M/M, One Shot, POV Second Person, Poetic, Sad and Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 00:29:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11771676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom/pseuds/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom
Summary: But until then, you're willing to sacrifice everything for the things he wants, even if the only thing he wants is her.





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this shit in one sitting, please end my suffering

You can't remember a time when he didn't mean everything to you. His smile, his laugh, his eyes. His _eyes_ , two glinting jade pebbles set at the foot of an ancient temple by a monk who climbs two thousand stone steps every morning, up a grand mountain and into the clouds, to pray to them, to wash them with sacred water he trapped from the brook that runs through the lush gardens of his home monestary, to polish them so that they reflect a sparkling beam of ethereal light toward the heavens when struck by the sun's rays in just the right way. He's blown you away with his looks alone every time you've ever thought of him.  
  
And that is to say nothing else of him. You've never met _anyone_  like him. If you were to describe him in detail to someone who had never met him, you're sure they'd say you were lying straight to their face, because it is entirely unrealistic for someone to be the bravest, the most intelligent, the kindest, the funniest, the most reliable, and the greatest friend to ever live, but somehow, he's managed it, and that means you can never seem to shake the thought of him.  
  
You've always been convinced that you two would be perfect together. He would live and let his life mold and shape the world, as it inevitably will, because he carries too much zealous ambition to accept anything less, and you would crawl on your belly behind him, as you have always done, to provide support, and to be within earshot of every command he would throw you. You'd make yourself useful to him, tending the flame of loyalty within you that you refuse to let die, because even if you found yourself helplessly incompetent in all other areas, none of it would matter. Not as long as you meant something to him.  
  
And that would be a beautiful equilibrium. You'd serve him so that you would deserve it, and he would simply grace you with his presence, and that would be enough.  
  
On the surface, that's how it always has been, but the difference between your desires and reality is that you crave more of his presence than what he gives you. The type of presence that, no matter how loyal you've been, he's never yet trusted you with. You want to hold his hand, and kiss him, and cuddle up next to him every single night for the rest of your lives. You want him to fuck you, use you, with a raw, unwavering passion, until he is satisfied, whenever he likes. You want to be _his_. All _his._  
  
If he were unfaithful, or if he didn't actually feel anything for you except pity, you are sure you would find yourself happy to be held even in just an artificial way. You don't care if it's real, or if it's fake, just as long as you get to be near him, like that.  
  
You've never cared. That is why you stayed for so long.  
  
That's why you're staying now.  
  
A few weeks ago, at school, he pulled you aside in the hallway before class started. Your heart tumbled and bounced and tossed itself beneath your tongue and refused to leave, because, for a moment, the more naïve parts of you swore he was about to confess that he was in love with you, and had always been, and that he'd be so, so lucky if he could consider you more than a friend. Over the years, you'd become desensitized to that old hope, enough that it no longer bothered you when your expectations were not met, but it was still not enough to dull your misguided sense of anticipation away entirely. Perhaps nothing could have done that.  
  
Though that building had once been swelling and straining with swaths of people, and your ears had once throbbed with piercing pulses of agony from the noise swarming them, everything around you seemed to pause, then dissolve into nothingness. All you saw was him. He was your flesh, and your bones, and your blood. He was your heart, and its every beat, and your mind and its every thought. He consumed you, somehow more than usual. You never thought it possible, but it happened, there, then, that he took all of you, and when he found there was nothing left of you for him to take, he still pressed on and took more.  
  
You smiled, and he smiled. You felt it coming, deep, deep in your gut, your chest, your heart, your throat. Your palms quivered, and your legs shook, and at that moment, a trembling beat in your lifetime that you knew you would cherish even on your deathbed, everything seemed so simple, so wonderful. Life blossomed into something so free, so beautiful, something brimming with opportunity and with wonder.  
  
You swore that he was finally going to love you, the way he was meant to.  
  
And then it came. It slipped past his lips, and his voice was high and shaky with joy, and you weren't sure what broke you more, that he said it at all, or that he was so happy to be saying it. He told you that he'd finally, after years of pining for her in secret, apologized to the girl you two had bullied since middle school and asked her out. He told you that he'd only done it to hide his feelings for her, and that he was sorry he'd roped you into it. He told you that she'd said yes, and that he was convinced that, for the first time in his life, everything was going right all at once without him having to hurt anyone to do it.  
  
The tears you'd been expecting arrived as soon as he left you. You spent the next period hiding on a toilet, with your face buried in your knees to smother away your unrelenting screams of anguish. You'd cried yourself to sleep over him a thousand times, but this was different; this was not spurred by intense desire, but by intense misery.  
  
You told yourself over and over again, using it as a sick comfort, that you had loved him much longer than he had loved her, and that was proof he would be _yours_ , as if he were some trophy to be earned through fair competition, only to realize how disgusting the thought was. You realized, once the initial barrage of hormones had faded, that true love is sacrifice, and sacrifice, in this situation, would be letting him go, because, in the end, love is surrendering all you have to keep someone else happy, and enjoying every second of it.  
  
That gave you some relief, but not enough.  
  
At first, when you met the girl, again, in a friendly way, as opposed to while cramming her head into her locker and barking at her that she was a mistake, her mere existence drained you, physically, mentally, emotionally. He'd been hanging out with you at his house a week later, as you'd always done, him, and you, and no one else, when she called, and he told you that she was coming over, too, in a gruff, sturdy tone that left no room for negotiation.  
  
You savored every minute of his undivided attention, but it went by too fast, because you could have spent the rest of your life there and never felt even the most fleeting twinge of boredom or regret.  
  
Soon, she was there, smiling at him, introducing herself to you, sitting on his bed so close to him that their thighs touched, putting her hand on his arm, doing everything you should have done while you still had the chance, and you wanted to retract yourself into the floor, never to be seen again. A deep longing for death clawed at your heart with talons that split through you as if you were no more than a thin, billowy linen on a clothesline. You knew her, and you had seen her a thousand times, and spoken to her, but the fact that she was his new girlfriend hadn't yet hit you, and now she was standing there, right in front of you, and there was nothing you could do to stop that horrible realization from stabbing you in the gut and draining away at your lifeblood.  
  
It was over, and you'd failed. You bit your tongue and held back your sorrow in silence, as you had with all your opinions for your entire life. They talked about school, and sports, and music, and they included you, and for a while, you felt your pain subsiding.  
  
But then she kissed his cheek, _right in front of you_ , and you fell apart.  
  
"Let's keep our hands to ourselves," you hissed, under your breath, but just loud enough to be heard. It was passive-aggressive, an avoidance of the direct confrontation that might have outed you as not only gay, but as a _coward_ , something you couldn't bear to be in the presence of a boy who was anything but. 

If them being together broke you, the look in his eyes, the anger, the hurt, shattered you, until you were nothing but microscopic shards of dejection. You caused that. You hurt him. You loved him, and you _hurt_  him. Why?  
  
The thought you had while you were crying came back to you.  
  
_True love is sacrifice._  
  
From then on, you smiled when you saw them walking the halls of your school together, hand in hand. You gave them space, and time. You let her replace you as the person who always clung to his shoulder. She succeeded you as his main follower, even in your fantasies, because, if she made him happy, you were more than willing to allow her to ruin your plan for the perfect life.  
  
In the grand scheme of things, little has changed. He's still your best friend. You still spend time together. You're still madly in love with him. You still cry yourself to sleep while staring at your favorite picture of him more often than you'd like to admit.

And they're still together, still happy. Maybe, someday, they'll come to the conclusion that they're incompatible, and break up, leaving your world as him and you once again.

But until then, you're willing to sacrifice everything for the things he wants, even if the only thing he wants is her.


End file.
